Well, keeping them in LOS is reasonable enough to me. I mean, think about it, once you start getting into the larger numbers (say, over five), it's gonna be hard to keep them all together, especially after a Powerbelt slips through your counterspelling and someone's eyeballs pop out of their skull in a shower of gore.

But the Mage doesn't have to spend any actions to Counterspell. It "turns on" with a Free action and is maintainance-free afterward. I like the fact that you need magic to counter magic. SR4 has also added the need for a Hacker/TM to counter a Hacker/TM.

Well, counterspelling is a free action, so unless they're feeling particularly gabby, they'll probably have an action to do it. And this is the SR4 forum, so this may be heresy, but "historically" magic has always been hard to defend against for mundanes.

True LOS is an inherent limit, I was just curious if anyone thought it was too much, but the consensus seems to be, with magic, more help is welcome.

Actually, putting it that way, i like the way it sounds.

Small nitpick: you can only cast spells at targets on the same plane as you. This means no dumping spells directly out of the astral onto people's heads while you telecommute from home.

'Scuse me. He attacks while astrally projecting, not from the actual astral plane. So he Manifests, gets the drop on a group of enemies, and blasts them all with stunball, then whizzes off at the speed of thought to his next target.

Those enemies should be able to have counterspell so that they have a chance in hell.

Still doesn't work that way, for obvious game balance reasons.

Well having a high willpower or body doesn't require skills either.... or even a high reaction against indirect combat spells... hmm.... OH! OH! Theres also the thing where cover and various other perception mods affect magic casting... while a hacker doesn't need anything but to detect your node... and private mode makes your commlink useless anyway... and the other thing that balances magic versus tech is DRAIN. That fireball you're whining is sooo powerful... kinda knocks a caster on their proverbial ass. Even a powerball does so to a lesser extent. Casting becomes a direct risk rather than an indirect one as hacking.

Thing is, look, I've played with this, and I agree with the game creators as to the balance aspect. If you have a character that you are so worried about... give them Magic Resistance. Those guys are a mages worst nightmare, End of Fragging Story. And get this, since I know this will make you go into confusion induced seizures; magic, in certain circumstances, will have an advantage... shocking I know. So does Hacking, Brute Force, and Social interaction... quell surprise please.

But to finish, Spellcasting and Counterspelling are neither underpowered, nor crazy powerful. They. Are. Just. Fine.

...

But that can't stop you from houseruling, just be prepared for things to get wacky...

I thought that was messed up. Now I can't wait to boot that Mage off his high horse. He thinks he's SOOO wiz.

Area-effect spells work well against cover or perception mods.

And I find Drain to be a little toothless, our Mage has 20 dice to roll to resist Drain (8 Logic + 8 Willpower + Focused Concentration + something else, I can't remember), and he can tends to overcast so he can use Heal on himself.

Magic Resistance? 20 BP for a whole +4? A +4 on the defense roll is a Mage's worst nightmare? I hope the target doesn't use edge, the Mage might die of fright. Not to mention that counts against Healing spells and you can't be the target of other helpful spells for willing targets.

Confusion induced Seizures? Did I inadvertantly dis your mom? I said above I'm new to SR and not used to magic-dominated games. Gimme a fraggin' break.

This isn't true. In SR3 it was quite possible to build a starting mundane character who was all but immune to combat spells due to high casting TNs.

Sustaining Foci 3 that sustain Increase [Logic] and Increase [Willpower]. From 5 to 8 with some ease. But that is true that I should not see that Mage character as the norm. The Player who plays him is one of those guys that MUST be able to kill anything with one roll. I'm sure you know the type. He's just as twinky in RL.

The main reason I think that Magic is unbalanced is that if you sink a bunch of BP into Pistols or Rigging skills or something, then you can shoot people or command a bunch of drones, respectively. If you sink a bunch of BP into magic and spellcasting so you can be a good Social Mage or Hacker Mage or whatever, you just need to spend 3 more BP to get a single combat spell and you're already on par with a Gunbunny who is maxed out for guns.

BUT! I'm new to SR so my opinions will certainly fluctuate as time progresses. And in meantime I'll just play a Mage .

I guess. There are some entire skill groups that can be covered with a few spells, though.
A mage with the spells Stealth, Invisibility and/or Hush is going to be better at being stealthy than a chacter with a 4 in the Stealth skill group.
Pistols or Longarms 4 doesn't compare with Powerball, Manaball, Stunball and all their associates. Those spells ignore armor and have a roughly equivalent DV, and can hit more enemies at once at a closer range than a grenade. Without recoil, ammo or anything. If you want close combat, cast Armor and/or Physical barrier.
A mage with Control Emotions and Mind Probe is a fairly effective Face, with some exceptions.
A vigilant GM would be a good defense against the above abuses, as would Astral protection. But a mage can have a combination of the above sets and be an Astral Badass with starting BP.
And that's fine, Mages don't get skillwires or suprathyroid glands or platelet factories, but it really pigeonholes you into Mage or Cyberperson. But I guess I don't really care, both are fun to play, and versatile at that, I just wanted to prove my point.


oh, and poor TMs are out in the cold

a few things.

first off, AOE does squat for visibility when you're talking about direct AOE spells (like stunball for example). in order for AOE to ignore visibility mods, you're looking for indirect spells... like fireball. you know, the spell that has a DV considerably higher than stunball. those ones. so, as a matter of fact, your mage absolutely has to see his targets when he's tossing stunballs around. clearly today is your lucky day, you get to knock him down *two* pegs, not just one =D

as far as invisibility, actually... it's good in the right circumstances. but useless against someone who can astrally perceive, or has ultrasound, for example. which, incidentally, normal stealth still helps against both of those things. also, unless you're talking about the physical (ie not mana) invisibility, then drones, cameras, and so forth can see right through it.

Pistols 4 and Longarms 4 may not compare to stunball, but have you tried an ares alpha with gas grenades? ignores standard armor, good damage, and hard to resist the damage. and the radius on a gas grenade is no laughing matter... if you're up against large enough groups that the radius on one of these bad boys isn't enough, then you're playing some messed up games. this also works to some extent with flashbangs, iirc. as far as your closer range comment... i suspect this may be peg number 3. you CANNOT pick and choose your targets within the area of the stunball. everyone you can see is hit. that is all. it is not "kill all the badguys within the area", it hits everything you can see, whether you like it or not. if there is any advantage to spells, it is their long range, not their short range. and also, the grenade launcher has the advantage of not requiring you to punch yourself in the face when you want to shoot it.

armor is all very nice for close combat, but ultimately is not the ultimate solution, unless we're talking about truly massive quantities of it.

control emotions/mind probe can be useful. until that mob boss resists it and proceeds to painfully dismember you and everyone you have ever associated with, that is.

...as a player of mundanes and the occasional adept (who has more important things to spend those precious few power points on), I must concur.

Well since you still only roll body or willpower to resist (as you did in SR3) I'll assume you mean having a high body or will (5 or 6?) which would still have a similar effect in SR4 (as a hit is on 5 or 6, i'm not one to bust out any statistics, plus assuming a force rating of 5 or 6, which i don't consider unlikely) but it seems to me that either way you're rolling one stat against either just sorcery (which would generally be higher in SR3) or sorcery + spell pool (SR3-wise). I know from my gaming experience mages usually had the advantage in firepower (though w/o quickened reflexes they would also get geeked quick). Everybody knows you hit the troll with the stunbolt!

He doesn't have to resist. Unless you kill him he'll know he was probed and/or controlled and will be incredibly pissed.

Just another sidenote: for the spell Increase [Attribute] the force of the spell must equal or exceed the (augmented) value of the attribute being affected. So, since his logic and willpower are base 5, that means he needs to cast the increase attribute spell at force 5 or higher. This means that his sustaining foci will have to be at least rating 5 to sustain the spells. For one, this is important, because the availibility on a sustaining focus is (Force x 4)R. Which means a rating 5 would have an availibility of 20R, and be unavailable at chargen. Also, a rating 5 would cost 50,000. Not exactly something to scoff at. Add to that, since you can't get it in chargen, it'll also take 10 karma to bond it.

Next, any security mage that even glances at this guy will see these very powerful spells on sustaining foci. You can use counterspelling to dispell a sustained spell. This is done in the form of counterspelling + magic vs force + original casters magic. Each net hit the security mage gets also drops the guys improved attributes. Until the spell goes away, in which case your friend would then have to recast his spells.

Frankly, I think you and him both need to go through the magic section a few more times, asking questions in threads on DS here as needed, until you get the rules down.

No drek.
I hadn't really taken a good look at the Magic chapter, I play a cybered Hacker. And the Player that plays the Mage is so like he is, he's wasn't worth arguing with. Not being the GM I just assumed he designed a character that was absurdly potent in physical combat, which was mutually exclusive with my Hacker's ability to, say, hack LoneStar and label him a wanted criminal.
I knew I should have just posted his character on the forums here and let everyone nerf him, looks like it might be time for that. Maybe next session I'll demand his stats.

..actually have had both of these instances occur (particularly the latter).

This is why I have so many characters in the "Home for Retired Runners".

No. I mean a high stat around 8 or 9. In SR3 any race can easily get a body of 9 or greater with cyberware and any race an get a willpower of 9 or greater by abusing edges and flaws.

At TN 9 a mage will have about a 1/9 chance of getting a success which averages out to about 1 success per spell a starting mage who throws in spell pool and 0 success for one who does not. At a TN of 6 the mundane will average 1 success every 6 dice this averages 1 success per resistance roll. The two cancel each other out. A mage with no net successes fails.


If you want to create a dedicated mundane anti-magicker you can have a gnome with 11 Willpower, 12 Body, and +4 dice for all magic resistance tests and still have room left over for other things. With a TN of 11 a magician will get a single success roughly every 18 dice. With a TN of 12 a magician will averge a success every 39 dice. The gnome will still be facing TNs of 6 or less and will average 2 success on every resistance test at the very least.

And, if you were really crazy you could become a ghoul for a chance at an extra +1 willpower.

i edited out some of our quotes since it was getting huge. hopefully nothing too imporant.

Well, I'm not sure what to say. This certainly is an extreme circumstance (is everyone in the group going to be gnome ghouls?). And considering we haven't had anything like the companion come out yet for SR4 to abuse, I don't think there is much to compare except straight up characters created from the main books. And I see how you could start off with a willpower of 7 with edges, but i'm not seeing how 8 or 9 is possible with any char (7 is pretty good though if mages scare you badly)

I find sarcasm to be the best method for the informed to communicate with the ignorant.
And sharpen up your sarcasm stick, because I refuse to believe that the Mage in our team is as potent as he says he is, so I'll post his character stats on the boards here and see what everyone can pick apart.

And this background count thing seems like a really good idea, but absent in SR4. I doubt they'll add something so central to the game with Street Magic, but I guess we'll see.

Area effect elemental spells are dodged with reaction. Area effect non-elemental spells are resisted with body or willpower.

well i would file that under metahuman variants as opposed to edges and flaws, though the outcome is the same. I still stand by my first statement that it has been "historically" hard to resist spells for mundanes. By twinking out a mundane you can make him pretty tough to cast against (SR3), but that's using a lot of optional rules, and certainly is not the norm for anybody, PC or NPC alike. I haven't run into too many albino koboruko shadowrunner teams.

That's not any different from 3rd edition, as I recall.

You're talking high background counts, like 3-4 or above. Radioactivity and toxic waste would give you a 4 or 5, even. Background counts as high as 2 are relatively common. Your run-of-the-mill office building with its fill of depressed people has a background count of 1, as would just about anywhere in Redmond. Even a dance club would probably generate a background count of 1 in SR3; emotions don't have to be negative to charge the ambient mana. The scene of a particularly bad murder or series of murders would have a background count of 2, so feel free to jack it up a little after your super-mage kills off his first few guards with those overcharged fireballs of his.